


Fifth Night

by silverstarsandroses



Series: Moonlight [4]
Category: Aladdin (2019)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Falling In Love, Forbidden Love, Kissing, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-08-14 03:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20185705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverstarsandroses/pseuds/silverstarsandroses
Summary: "'I know we don’t have forever,' Aladdin says, more slowly, more carefully. He reaches up and covers Jasmine's hand on his chest with his own. He wonders if she minds the feel of his hands; he knows they’re rough and calloused, a thief’s hands. 'But by my count, I’ve got to come back at least three more nights. Who knows how many I can steal after that?'"





	1. First Night

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this wasn't originally going to be a multi-chapter (I also wasn't intending to have a multi-chapter inside a series....or else I would have just done one massive multi-chapter lmao). But just the first night in this was getting long, so I figured I'd break it up. Hope you enjoy it!

Aladdin lives his life one day at a time. He doesn’t ever think into the future. How can he, when he’s not even sure if he’ll survive that long? He’s focusing on today’s dinner, not tomorrow’s dreams.

Jasmine hasn’t helped that one bit. He knows this isn’t forever. Hell, it’s not even half of forever. She has to choose a husband by the end of the summer, which is in just about two weeks. He has two weeks with her at the most, and that’s assuming she doesn’t try to push him away before then. That’s assuming she doesn’t come to her senses and realize she could be having nighttime dalliances with a rich, handsome prince instead.

He doesn’t let himself worry about what’s in two weeks, though. Every night as he’s sneaking into the palace – he’s getting good at it by now, too – he thinks only of tonight. He thinks only of the jewelry in his pocket that buys him one more evening with her. One more night, one more sight of her, one more kiss.

God, he wants her to kiss him for real. He knows he can’t have forever, but he at least wants that.

Every night, he hopes for that kiss.

Aladdin is a creature of endless optimism.

Tonight, when he scales her balcony, he finds her sitting on a bench, reading a book by the light of a lantern at her side. The book is in her lap, and she hunches over it, as if completely engrossed. The lantern is dim, and it casts an orange glow that only reaches as far as the book and Jasmine’s hands. It doesn’t reach her hair, which has fallen over her shoulders and around her face. Her hair is silvered by the light of a moon that wanes each night Aladdin comes to visit.

Aladdin climbs over the railing and lands lightly on his feet. When Jasmine doesn’t notice him, he clears his throat politely.

Jasmine looks up, as if surprised to see him there. She immediately shuts the book and sets it aside, smiling and looking away as if embarrassed.

“I can come back,” he says, pointing back down at the gardens below.

“No, I – I lost track of time,” she says. She stands. “Have you brought my ring?”

Aladdin pulls it from his pocket. He grins at her and asks, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were more eager to see your jewelry back every night than you are to see me.”

Jasmine smiles and blushes again, and she tucks her hair behind one ear as her eyes fall to the ground. Aladdin steps closer, bending a bit to try to meet her fallen gaze.

“Should I have a reason to know better?” he asks, with a voice full of hope.

He’s fishing. He knows it, and she knows it. But all he has are these evenings with her. If she’s an oasis, he’ll drink as much as she’ll let him.

“If I didn’t want you coming back, I wouldn’t let you keep stealing my jewelry,” Jasmine tells him. Her tone of voice says that it should be obvious.

“Aw, come on,” Aladdin says. “You can do better than that, Princess.”

“Or what?” she challenges, sticking her chin in the air.

“Or you don’t get your ring back.”

“Oh, are you changing the price? Do you not want your kiss?”

“Not changing the price, just raising it. I still want that kiss. And you know the rules: no hand, nose, or behind the ear. But first I want to hear you say that you like me coming here at night.”

Jasmine pretends to glare, and it’s so adorable, Aladdin has to restrain himself from leaning in to kiss her scrunched-up nose.

But then her pretend-glare subsides, and she’s quiet a while. Aladdin looks down at the ring in his hands and fiddles with it, to avoid looking at its owner. He shouldn’t have pressed. He should have just been happy to be here at all. He shouldn’t assume that these visits have the same meaning for her that they do for him.

(His heart knows better, deep at its core. But hearts often hope so much they don’t let themselves believe their hopes could ever be real.)

He starts to say, “You don’t have to –”

At the same moment, Jasmine says, “Your visits are the –”

They both stop and look at the other expectantly. Then they both wave for the other to start, and they laugh awkwardly. Finally, Aladdin gestures for Jasmine to speak, and he waits with bated breath.

Jasmine’s eyes are on the tiles below her feet as she says quietly, “Your visits are the best part of my day, and I…I think about them all day long.”

Aladdin’s heart thuds, slow and loud.

She raises her eyes to his. “I think about you all day long.”

His gaze softens. He’s in love with her. He knows it more certainly than he’s ever known anything, and the words are stuck somewhere between his head and his throat. They’re in his eyes, though, and he’s certain she can see them.

Jasmine steps closer. “A kiss for my ring, then?”

He nods.

He wants to kiss her. He never wants to stop kissing her, save to tell her that he loves her. He wants to come back for one thousand nights and steal one thousand kisses, and then he wants to steal one thousand more.

Jasmine comes closer and clasps his hand in hers, and she raises it between them, their fingers intertwined. Aladdin brushes his thumb gently over her skin. Her hands are soft and small and warm.

Jasmine unfolds their fingers, and for a moment, their hands press flat against each other, palm to palm. Then she holds Aladdin’s hand in both of hers, and he knows that this isn’t the night she kisses him on the lips. Somehow, he isn’t bothered by it. Maybe because he knows it’s coming, eventually, even if not tonight.

Jasmine looks up at Aladdin through her eyelashes. Then she presses her lips to his pinky finger.

A shiver runs down Aladdin’s spine.

Jasmine’s lips are soft, the kiss fleeting. She moves on to kiss the tip of Aladdin’s ring finger. This kiss lasts just a breath longer. Then the middle finger. On his index finger, her lips linger, and Aladdin trails his finger over the curve of her lower lip.

He pulls his hand back, bringing up the other with the ring in it. Jasmine’s hand brushes clumsily against his as she takes her ring back.

Aladdin hasn’t blinked since she kissed his pinky. He’s not sure he’s breathed, either. He hasn’t had a single thought beyond drinking in every detail of this moment like a dying man.

His first thought when it’s over, and he asks it aloud, is, “When are you going to let me kiss you?”

Jasmine smiles, and her tone is glib. “If I did that, what’s to stop you from falling completely in love with me?”

“A little late to worry about that,” Aladdin says, without thinking.

Jasmine’s mouth falls open ajar. Aladdin realizes what he’s said, and he takes a step back, ready to backtrack. But Jasmine speaks before he can open his mouth.

“You know this can’t last forever, right?” she says sadly.

“I know,” he says, and all his words spill out in a tangled rush. “I’m not expecting anything – you already told me the second night I came here – I know you have to marry a prince – I’m not expecting anything, Jasmine, I know you can’t – I know we can’t –”

She puts a hand on his chest, and it stops his harried words in their tracks.

He loves that about her, the way she makes him pause. The way she makes him stop and think and feel, rather than running headlong into every moment of life like he’s always done. Everything about her is intentional and clear. It’s like he’s been living life at double speed, and she’s finally showing him life in real time.

“I know we don’t have forever,” he says, more slowly, more carefully. He reaches up and covers her hand on his chest with his own. He wonders if she minds the feel of his hands; he knows they’re rough and calloused, a thief’s hands. “But by my count, I’ve got to come back at least three more nights. Who knows how many I can steal after that?”

“I don’t want to give you false hope,” she tells him.

Aladdin smiles at her, and he gives her hand a squeeze. “No such thing, Princess.”

They’re quiet. In the distance, he can hear the sounds of Agrabah at night. The real world is sitting just beyond the borders of this moment between them. He just wants to keep it out for a little longer.

“What were you reading before I showed up?” he asks.

Jasmine blinks at the sudden change in topic. She takes a few steps toward the bench where her book sits, as if she has to remind herself. Aladdin’s heart clenches as her fingers slip from his and her hand leaves his chest.

“It’s an epic poem,” she tells him, her eyes on the volume. “One of my favorites. You probably already know it, though.”

“I doubt it,” Aladdin says. “I don’t steal a lot of books. Or any books, really. Mostly just valuables and food.”

“Oh,” Jasmine says. “Of course – I, I mean, if you’d like to borrow it –”

“Also wouldn’t work,” he says.

Jasmine looks at him blankly.

“I can’t read,” he explains.

Her eyes widen. “Oh! I’m – I mean, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have –”

“It’s fine,” Aladdin assures her. “Hasn’t really held me back much. But…would you read to me from it?”

Jasmine looks confused again. “You want me to read to you? Why?”

Aladdin shrugs. “The story will be new to me. Besides, I like the sound of your voice.”

Jasmine’s face softens, and her chest lowers as she lets out the softest of sighs. She picks up her book and moves the lantern so there’s room for Aladdin on the bench, too. He agonizes for a second over how close to sit, but it’s not a large bench. He has no option but to have his leg pressed to hers, albeit with several layers of her turquoise skirts between them. This close, he can smell the floral aroma of Jasmine’s hair; her hair has fallen in front of her again, as she opens the book to find her place. Aladdin brushes it back behind her ear.

“Once, in a land ruled by a powerful sultan,” Jasmine begins.

She reads as if she’s rehearsed it. Her voice is lyrical and smooth, and it swells as she reads the most dramatic lines. Aladdin listens, and he gazes at her, enraptured by her voice.

It’s nice, he thinks, to be in love. It’s such a simple thing, but he feels so wondrously whole right now. He can’t remember a moment that wasn’t this one.

She reads until her lantern burns low, and then she shuts her book and looks at him, almost apologetically.

“Did I go on too long?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “I could listen to you forever.”

The way she smiles at him…he hopes he was right when he said there’s no such thing as false hope. He hopes that the way he feels tonight doesn’t just belong to him.

He reaches between them and puts a hand over her wrist, and unclasps the bracelet encircling it.

“Three more nights,” he tells her.

She doesn’t say anything. He sees just a shadow of heartbreak in her eyes, though, and he knows she’s thinking of the end of summer. He doesn’t mention it. It’s not tonight, so to him, it doesn’t exist.

He’s always lived his life one day at a time. Being in love makes that no different.

The one thing that’s different: tonight, before he leaves, he presses a kiss to the back of her hand.


	2. Second Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'You aren’t really planning on crashing the harvest celebration, are you?'
> 
> Aladdin shrugs and tucks his hands in his pockets. He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet as he replies, 'Maybe, maybe not. You did say you’re going to be pretty bored, so if I did, it would be for your sake. I just want to be prepared.'"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I upped the rating to T, fyi. This chapter gets a little thirsty.

When Aladdin drops down from the roof to the balcony, Jasmine isn’t there.

He panics for one wild second. What if she decided not to see him again? What if they were found out? What if she’s already chosen a husband from all those princes?

Then he hears her voice from inside her rooms, and that one-second worry abates.

“The hem is a little long in front,” Jasmine says.

“A few inches less, like this?” a woman replies.

It takes Aladdin a few seconds to place the voice as Jasmine’s handmaiden, Dalia. He only heard her voice for a few moments, almost a week ago. He wonders if he ought to hide from her. She knew about Aladdin coming the first two times, but she hardly sounded approving the night Aladdin overheard her.

“A little more,” Jasmine replies. “Just enough so that I can walk. I don’t want everyone’s first impression of me to be falling on my face.”

“You won’t fall on your face, and even if you did, a dozen princes would catch you before you hit the ground,” Dalia replies. “There, is that better?”

Aladdin tiptoes over to one of the columns separating Jasmine’s balcony from her bedroom. Inside, Jasmine is standing in front of a gold-edged mirror. Aladdin can see her reflection; she looks…breathtaking.

Her dress is burnt orange and gold, with sleeves that drip and a train that extends a few feet behind her. The neckline comes to a point with just a shadow of cleavage showing, but that shadow and the way the bodice hugs her is enough to make Aladdin’s mouth dry. A golden veil spills over Jasmine’s loose hair. In the candlelight, she glows.

Heedless of Dalia’s presence, Aladdin steps out from behind his column and says, “You look beautiful.”

Jasmine whirls around, and Dalia stumbles back from her crouch as she loses her grip on the hem of Jasmine’s dress. Neither Aladdin nor Jasmine pay her any mind; their eyes are solely on each other.

Aladdin sweeps his eyes over ever inch of her. She is everything perfect and radiant. She’s painfully alluring, too. It’s the bodice, the loose hair, the way her eyelids lower when she looks at him. He wants to pull her to him and kiss her senseless. He wants to wrap his arms around her, press his palms against the indent of her waist and the slope of her back. He wants to tangle his fingers in her hair and trail kisses down her neck, across her collarbone, and all the way down to that magnificent neckline.

“You’re early,” Jasmine says.

Aladdin is still drinking in the sight of her. It takes his mind a second to catch up to what she’s said, and he replies after too long, “No, I’m not. Am I?”

He turns and ducks to look where the moon is. Visible, already above the minaret.

“Definitely not early,” he says.

“Oh, we must have lost track of time,” Jasmine says apologetically. “Dalia, can we finish this tomorrow?”

Dalia has already stood up and begun packing pins into her sewing kit. “Tomorrow morning, so we have time to get it back to the seamstress. She needs it back quickly to finish the embroidery in time.”

“Of course,” Jasmine says. “Goodnight, Dalia.”

“Goodnight, Princess,” Dalia replies. She tucks her sewing kit under her arm and gives Aladdin a polite nod before she leaves.

Aladdin doesn’t miss the meaningful look that Dalia gives Jasmine before she shuts the door, but he can’t for the life of him figure out what it means. Probably disapproval, if he had to guess.

“I’m sorry, I promise I didn’t forget,” Jasmine says.

“Don’t worry,” Aladdin says. “Especially if you forgetting means I get to see you in this. What’s the occasion?”

Jasmine’s eyes fall to the ground. “A party in four nights, to celebrate the start of the harvest.”

“Sounds fun,” Aladdin says.

“And the arrival of the last of my suitors,” Jasmine finishes.

His heart sinks. He hasn’t miscounted, has he? He thought it was two weeks until the end of the summer, not four days. He says as much.

Jasmine shakes her head. “It’s two weeks. You’re not wrong. But the end of summer is the very last day I have to choose. My father has graciously given me a week to decide after I meet the last of my suitors at the celebration.”

Slowly, with gaps big enough to crawl through between each word, Aladdin says, “So you could choose before the two weeks are up.”

“He wants me to,” Jasmine says simply.

There’s a finality in her voice that says clearly she’d rather not discuss this. Aladdin has to agree. That conversation would go nowhere that wouldn’t end in heartbreak, and they don’t have to confront that yet. They still have until Jasmine chooses.

He still has two nights after this. Four kisses, and tonight uses up the second. Two nights is a lifetime to a thief.

“I wish I could be at that party,” Aladdin says, trying to force some levity into his voice. “I bet it’s going to be a great time. Food, dancing…you.”

Jasmine smiles, with a half-giggle. “As well as too many boring dignitaries to count. And I’ll probably get stuck talking to them for most of the night. So you would have to enjoy the food and dancing on my behalf.”

“Happily,” Aladdin says. “Besides, if it meant an excuse to see you in this…you really do look beautiful. But you know what would make you look perfect?”

Jasmine’s brows furrow. “What?”

Aladdin holds up her bracelet. “This.”

Jasmine laughs, and she steps forward to pluck it from his grasp. Aladdin almost pulls it away, but then he remembers: she already bought it back with last night’s kiss. It must be sense memory, the way his skin prickles with anticipation when he holds up the bracelet. The moment it leaves his grasp, he’s left feeling like something is missing.

(When will you kiss me for real, he asked last night. He suddenly can’t remember her promising it would ever happen.)

“If I were at that party,” Aladdin tells her, “I would manage to steal you from the dignitaries for at least one dance. You know, for your sake.”

“Oh, for my sake,” she repeats. “Sure.”

“You know, you’d really better give me another lesson. Just in case I manage to show up.”

Jasmine laughs. “Are you going to sneak past all those guards, then?”

He shrugs. “I’ve been doing it every night for a week. Why not at a party?”

“Because the party will have actual guards in attendance, unlike my bedroom.”

“Maybe your bedroom should have some guards, then. Just anyone could walk in.”

His eyes flicker for a half-second down to Jasmine’s bodice again. Standing closer now, her cleavage is more than a shadow. His eyes are back up to hers in a second, but the two of them are standing too close together for Jasmine to have missed his eyes tracing up and down her body.

She’s still smiling, though. Her eyelids have lowered ever so slightly, like they did when he first entered.

It occurs to him that they’re alone in an unguarded, candlelit bedroom, and she’s wearing a very well-fitting dress, and all he can think about when they’re standing this close is the feel of her lips. What would it be like to press his lips to hers? What would it be like to help her out of that dress, carry her to her bed, and – 

Jasmine’s hand brushes his. Her touch trails against his palm, up his wrist, and along his forearm. Her touch is feather-light, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

He’s barely breathing. “Jasmine.”

She swallows; he can see it in her throat. Then she wraps her hand around his wrist and tugs him toward the balcony, saying, “A dancing lesson, then.”

He stumbles after her. He’s stuck in that last moment, even as he’s stepping onto the balcony and watching her demonstrate a few steps. He’s pretty sure his brain doesn’t fully catch up until he tries the steps himself and fails, and Jasmine puts her hands on him to correct him. The second her hand touches his shoulder, the world comes back into focus, with the clarity that only Jasmine ever brings.

Jasmine puts one hand on Aladdin’s shoulder and the other at his elbow, guiding him slowly through the dance. Aladdin is definitely not absorbing the lesson as well as he could, thanks to her intoxicating presence and where his head is at tonight. But if it means that she keeps correcting him, he doesn’t mind one bit.

Her hands gently guide his arms, his shoulders, even – for one glorious moment that sends heat all the way down his spine – his leg, with a gentle touch to the thigh. There’s no music, and Jasmine hums as they go through the steps together.

“That’s good,” she says, afterward. “You’re a quick learner.”

Aladdin shrugs. “I pick things up fast. Always had to. But, you know, it helps that I have a good teacher.”

She gives him a look at the obvious pandering, but he doesn’t back down from it.

“Since you’re such a good teacher,” Aladdin continues, “And this is just if I really somehow do manage to crash your party, could you teach me how to introduce myself correctly? Like, with a bow and everything?”

“You want to know how to make a court entrance?” Jasmine asks, one eyebrow arched in the air. She crosses her arms. “You aren’t really planning on crashing the harvest celebration, are you?”

Aladdin shrugs and tucks his hands in his pockets. He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet as he replies, “Maybe, maybe not. You did say you’re going to be pretty bored, so if I did, it would be for your sake. I just want to be prepared.”

“Uh huh.” Jasmine seems unamused now.

“Just for novelty’s sake,” he pleads.

(Does she not want him there? Does she not want him to see her flirting with princes and being showered in their adoration? Does she not want him to realize that he’s really nothing special at all?)

Jasmine doesn’t answer. She just comes and stands next to him, and she demonstrates a deep and perfect bow. Then she looks at Aladdin expectantly, until he tries it himself.

“Keep both feet firmly on the ground,” she tells him. She stifles a laugh. “That’s more of a curtsy.”

Aladdin tries again.

“Deeper,” she says. “I assume you’re trying to impress my father in this purely hypothetical scenario?”

“I’m trying to impress everyone,” Aladdin says. “But especially you.”

He bows to her, and she gives an elegant curtsy in return.

Then she says, “You wouldn’t have to bow to me, you know.”

“I wouldn’t?” he asks. “But isn’t it all about social rank, or something? And your rank is definitely higher than mine. I mean, you have one, for one thing.”

Jasmine shakes her head. She steps in closer and puts a hand on Aladdin’s chest, right above his heart. Without thinking, he reaches up and cups her cheek in his hand. Jasmine’s eyes flutter shut for just a moment.

When her eyes open again, she tells him, “That party is going to be full of princes vying for my hand. They’re going to fawn over my father all night. They’re going to bow, and they’re going to shower him and me with compliments and gifts, and they’re going to make their case for why they would be the most wonderful ruler that Agrabah has ever known.

“If you were at that party, I wouldn’t let you bow to me. I wouldn’t let anyone mistake you for one of them. I’ve met enough princes to last a lifetime already, and I promise you, you’re better than all of them.”

“But you’ve got to marry one of them,” he says, without thinking.

Jasmine’s jaw tightens. “Yes, I do.”

For one wild second, he thinks about running away together. They could marry in secret and abscond to some faraway kingdom, and they would…what? Steal to survive? Leave Agrabah without a successor?

He’d marry her, if he could. Every night he’s gotten to spend with her has been like a dream, but it can’t last forever. She’s going to marry someone else, and he’s going to forget her and go back to living life one day at a time, stealing to survive.

“Well,” Aladdin says “Just make sure not to tell anyone of them I’ve been in your bedroom. They may get jealous.”

Jasmine laughs. While she’s distracted, Aladdin takes the chance to remove one of the pins holding her golden veil in place. Half the veil falls away from her face, and it swings behind her like a pendulum.

“I’ve still got two more nights, though,” he says. It’s as much a reminder to himself as it is to her. “Until tomorrow, Princess.”

Jasmine’s thumb brushes once, twice over Aladdin’s heart. She beams up at him and says, “Until tomorrow, Aladdin.”

It’s hard tonight to pull himself away tonight. He doesn’t know what he’ll do in two nights, when it’s for the last time.

But that’s a problem for then, not now.

(Will it fade, he wonders, this feeling like he can’t live without her?)


	3. Third Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'I know we can’t, and I know you would never say yes, which is why I’m not asking,' Aladdin says, 'But if we ran away together, where would you want to go?'
> 
> 'I can’t run away with you,' she whispers, her eyes still squeezed shut and her forehead still pressed to his. Her voice is wracked with guilt, but also with the certainty he knew would be there. She didn’t even hesitate before saying it.
> 
> Aladdin cups her cheek in one hand and shifts his face to kiss her other cheek, and then he whispers in her ear, 'I know, but just pretend. If we had forever, what would we do with it?'"

Aladdin picks flowers from the palace gardens. He stole some ribbon earlier that he ties them together with, and it almost looks nice. Almost enough to please a princess with. He has to hold the bouquet in his teeth while he climbs up to Jasmine’s balcony, but he and the flowers both get there in one piece.

Jasmine is sitting on the bench, waiting for him. She’s wearing a simple yellow dress, and no jewelry save for a pair of gold earrings. She smiles when she sees him, and her smile widens when he holds up the flowers.

“You mentioned that most men don’t steal your things to woo you,” he says. “Thought I’d try doing it the normal way.”

Aladdin hands Jasmine the flowers, and she holds them up to smell them. He watches her eyelids flutter in delight, the slow curl of a smile across her cheeks. When she looks up at him, it’s with delight and gratitude, and it makes his heart twist in the most wonderful way.

“Thank you,” she says simply.

“Of course,” he replies. “I’d do more if I could. Recite poetry, bring you jewelry – other than your hair pin, of course. It’s tied to the bouquet.”

Jasmine holds up the bouquet, and sure enough, her hair pin is attached to the ribbon. It catches the moonlight, and Jasmine laughs at the sight of it.

Aladdin sits beside her. He swallows, and he wipes the sweat on his palms against his knees. “I mean it. I want to do this right. I’ve only got one night after this, Jasmine, and I…”

I love you. The words stick, and they won’t quite come out. His heart stutters as she looks at him, with so much affection and longing and dashed hope in her eyes.

“I don’t want to think of something I wish I’d asked you and I’ll never have the chance again,” he says. “So, tell me everything. When I say goodbye for the last time, I want to feel like I really knew you, and – and…”

Loved you. But his courage fails him once more.

Jasmine has to know, right? She has to know from the way he looks at her, from everything he says, from everything he’s carefully not saying. She has to know he loves her.

She puts her hand on his, their clasped hands resting on his knee. She says, “You’re going to get bored of hearing me talk so much, you know.”

He reaches up and tucks her hair behind her ear. He trails his fingers along her cheek, and she nuzzles her cheek into the palm of his hand. He brushes his thumb along her cheekbone.

“You are the most interesting thing in the world to me,” he says. “I promise.”

Jasmine smiles, her eyes fluttering shut at Aladdin’s touch. He gazes at her in awe and utterly in love.

God, he wishes he had a lifetime to know this woman. He would move mountains just for one more night after tomorrow.

Jasmine opens her eyes once more, and she asks him, “Wanting to know everything is a pretty broad question. What do you want to know first?”

“What do you want me to ask you? What do people never ask that you want to talk about more than anything?”

She looks surprised, and she has to think hard for a second, her eyebrows furrowing together. She gets this line between her brows and one across her forehead when she’s thinking hard. Aladdin wonders how long it’ll take him to forget that. He wonders how long before the details of her slip away like sand in an hourglass.

“Ask me what I want most,” she tells him, finally.

He asks her. A radiant smile passes over her face, and she looks out, over the balcony, over the gardens, over the palace walls, her gaze settling somewhere on the horizon very far away.

“I want the world,” she says. “I want the freedom to go where I please, when I please. I want to see what the world beyond Agrabah looks like. I want to meet people, experience new cultures, see the ocean, feel the snow up in the mountains. I want to do good for people. Real good, good that lasts and that matters. I want to know the world was better for my being here. I want to know that the world was different at all for my having been here, other than just bearing children and being someone’s wife. I want to be happy, and I want to matter, and I…I want my life to mean something.

“And I’m so afraid that it won’t.”

Her face falls when she says it.

Aladdin squeezes her hand, but he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have any consolation for her. There’s no part of the truth that can comfort her, because the truth is, so many of her fears may come true, so many of her desires go unrealized. The world is an unkind place to the wants of us all, but to women especially.

Her eyes are still somewhere far away, as if she’s staring at passing images of all the years pressing in upon her and finds them wanting. But then, she tears her eyes away and looks at Aladdin.

“What about you, Aladdin?” she asks. “What do you want?”

“To come back here every night until the end of time,” he answers, with as charming a smile as he can give her.

Jasmine smiles and blushes, but then she says, “No, really. Before you met me, let’s say. What did you want most?”

He shrugs. He gives the usual answers: food, a comfortable bed, new clothes, sturdy shoes. Jasmine is quiet, and she waits patiently for more.

He’s not sure there is more, though. Nothing specific.

“I want something bigger to want,” Aladdin says. Even as he says it, the words are fumbling, and the ideas only half-formed. “I want more than what I’ve got, and I guess I want to do something that matters. I just…what is there for me? I don’t even know what to want. To see the world, I guess? Or money, or…or…”

He looks at her, who’s still looking at him expectantly. She wants there to be more in him. She believes there is, and who knows, maybe there could be. Maybe she could help him find it, if they had more time.

“I was serious,” Aladdin says. “I want to come back to you every night until the end of forever. I want to bring you flowers and make you smile, and I want to do things no one else thinks of that make you happy. I want to have forever to fall in love with you.”

And I want you to fall in love with me, too. He doesn’t say it out loud. Because yes, there’s hope, and yes, there’s the fact that she’s let him come back and she looks at him the way she does and she kissed his fingers that night with such reverence. But to believe she loves him back, fully and completely like he loves her, is just that little bit farther that he doesn’t dare let himself hope for.

Jasmine leans forward, and for a half-second, Aladdin thinks she’s about to kiss him. But she innocently presses her forehead to his, her eyes shut. He keeps his open and searches every inch of her face, memorizing it so that he can never, ever forget one detail of the woman he loved.

In the silence between them, he can almost read the words from her that he so longs to hear aloud. The empty space tonight is full of so many unsaid things, and he can almost reach out and hear them in the silence.

Almost.

“I know we can’t, and I know you would never say yes, which is why I’m not asking,” Aladdin says, “But if we ran away together, where would you want to go?”

“I can’t run away with you,” she whispers, her eyes still squeezed shut and her forehead still pressed to his. Her voice is wracked with guilt, but also with the certainty he knew would be there. She didn’t even hesitate before saying it.

Aladdin cups her cheek in one hand and shifts his face to kiss her other cheek, and then he whispers in her ear, “I know, but just pretend. If we had forever, what would we do with it?”

Jasmine’s cheek presses to his. She pulls back slightly, and their noses brush together. Their foreheads press together once more. Their hands press to each other’s cheeks; hers slip down to his collarbone. He’s never touched her as much as he is now, and he’s never needed more of her than he does now. He wants to touch her everywhere, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. He wants to feel the softness of her skin, smell the flowers in her hair, feel the goosebumps on her arms when his fingers brush the inside of her wrist like he does now.

“We’d run from the city guards, like we did the day we met,” she says breathlessly. Her mouth is inches from his, and he feels her breath against his lips.

“We couldn’t stay in the city,” he tells her. “They’d look for you.”

“Then we’d ride camels across the desert, all the way to Sherabad,” she tells him. “So I could see my mother’s kingdom. Or we’d take a boat across the ocean.”

“We could go swimming,” he says.

“I don’t know how.”

“I’d teach you.”

“I’d like that.”

She rearranges herself so that she’s leaning sideways against him, her head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close. His palm falls just at the narrowest indent of her waist, like he thought about last night.

It feels nice. It feels like his hand belongs there.

“You’d have to marry me, if we ran away together,” she whispers, so quietly Aladdin almost doesn’t hear it.

His heart catches. There’s an unexpected sting just after, too. Because in a different world, maybe he could marry her. Maybe he really could have forever with her, and maybe she could fall in love with him the way he wants her to, and maybe it would be uncomplicated and simple. They would just be two people in love, and that would be the end of it.

He presses a kiss to the top of her head and whispers, “I’d marry you.”

She’s quiet. So is he.

They sit there a while. They watch the moon trace its way up the sky, from the minaret to the zenith of the sky. At some point, Aladdin asks Jasmine about her childhood, her mother, her father, Dalia, Rajah. Jasmine asks Aladdin about his parents, about Abu, about learning to steal. They ask each other a thousand questions about their lives: the thousand mundane things that they only ask because they don’t have the time to learn it the way we just absorb things about the people we love.

At some point, the black of the night sky begins to lighten slightly to an inky blue. The moon has long since vanished below the palace roof. The two of them have been silent for some time.

Aladdin holds her, and he hopes, over and over again: tell me you love me.

“It’s late,” Jasmine says.

She reaches up and removes an earring, and she presses it into Aladdin’s hand that isn’t holding her to his side. She twists so that she looks up into his face. She looks vulnerable, and he wants to pull her closer and whisper promises into her ear.

“Come back tomorrow,” she tells him.

“I will,” he says.

Neither of them says it aloud: for the last time.

He gazes into her eyes for too many seconds after saying goodbye. She looks away first, and as she’s turning away, he swears he can see her bite her lip and squeeze her eyes tight, as if trying not to cry.

He feels a pain in his palm. He opens his hand and sees a small bead of blood beside Jasmine’s earring; he’d been clutching it tightly. He realizes, as he’s staring at the earring, that however much jewelry he’s stolen from her, Jasmine hasn’t given him anything to remember her by.

After tomorrow night, he’ll have nothing but memories. Nothing tangible to ever prove to himself that all this was real and not some wonderful, bittersweet dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For what it's worth, I really wasn't expecting this chapter to get so angsty. I'd apologize, but y'all, this is gonna get worse before it gets better, so bear with me lmao.


	4. Fourth Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "'Have you ever been in love before?' she asks softly.
> 
> She asks it with a little hesitation in her voice, as though afraid the answer will be yes. As if she isn’t wholly unlike anyone he’s ever met, as if the whole world doesn’t wilt away beside her.
> 
> 'Not before this, no,' he says."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I genuinely was not intending for chapter three to be so angsty, so I thought I would give us all a breather this chapter. Or at least try to. YMMV.

Aladdin pauses at the edge of the garden. He wants to savor this feeling, getting to look forward to seeing Jasmine. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the earring she gave him last night. He brushes his thumb over it, smiling fondly as a week’s worth of memories wash over him.

A week. It feels at once so miniscule, compared to the time he wants, and so enormous too. It’s as if he’s stepped out of time itself and is floating in a world where time is solely defined by the moments he spends up on that balcony.

He steps out of the bushes and into the moon-bathed garden.

Jasmine is up on her balcony, leaning over the railing to look out over the garden below. Her hair is in a braid that pours over one shoulder. She smiles radiantly when she sees Aladdin, and he stops in his tracks at the sight of her.

He walks closer to the edge of the balcony. He calls up to her, “It’s a shame, you know.”

His tone makes it clear that he wants her to bite, and she does. “What’s a shame?”

“That I’ve already seen the most beautiful thing I’ll ever see,” Aladdin replies. “It’s all downhill from here, really.”

Jasmine laughs. He’d bottle the sound and keep it forever if he could, like the other trinkets he’s stolen and can’t bring himself to sell.

He climbs up the balcony, his heart thumping with every step. As soon as his feet land on the balcony and his eyes land on Jasmine, though, the thumping gets even louder. How can tonight be the last night? How is he supposed to say everything he needs to say to her?

Well, he can start with the most important thing.

“Jasmine, I –”

“Wait.”

He looks at her, confused. Nerves start to brew in his stomach. She’s been holding him at bay all these nights, and he understands it. He does. She needs to keep some barriers up, because after all, every inch they let themselves fall is another inch harder they’ll hit the ground when this ends.

But God, he needs her to let him say it. He’ll regret it forever if he doesn’t get to tell her that he loves her.

Jasmine comes closer, slipping a ring off her finger as she does. She holds it out between them, a hopeful smile on her face. The ring is a small, braided gold band.

“The harvest celebration isn’t until the night after tomorrow,” Jasmine says. “One more night? Please?”

Aladdin’s hand closes over hers, the ring nestled inside the union of their hands. “One more night.”

One more kiss.

Jasmine continues, “Last night was…it was lovely. But I don’t want to waste our last two nights lamenting what we can’t control. I just want to pretend that everything is fine, and that we’re two people in…two people who just want to spend time together. I have tea and some food, if you’d like. Just stay, and talk, and…”

He sees her lip quiver. It’s tiny, and he wouldn’t notice if he weren’t constantly staring at her lips.

Aladdin pulls Jasmine’s hand up and kisses the back of it, and he jokes, “And flirt with you as much as I can. I think I can manage that.”

Jasmine laughs. She takes a deep breath, and Aladdin finally removes the ring from their shared grasp – oh God, his hand is sweaty, he realizes, was it like that the whole time he was holding her hand? – and slides it into his pocket.

“Food would be great,” he says. “Haven’t really had a lot of it today.”

Jasmine looks horrified for a second. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think. I should have given you food every night you –”

“You don’t have to,” Aladdin interrupts. “That’s not why I come here.”

He gives her what he hopes is a charming smile, and it seems to render Jasmine speechless for a second. Then she takes him by the hand and leads him into her room. She pours them both tea, and Aladdin helps himself to the fruit and baklava sitting on an elegant silver platter. The fruit is ripe and plump, and Aladdin thinks bitterly of all the half-spoiled fruit he’s forced himself to swallow over the years despite the taste and texture.

He thinks of going back to a life of just that after tomorrow night. The old fruit, the stale bread: it’s all tasted a little better this past week, with his thoughts on Jasmine instead of the food. The world has been just that little bit brighter with her in it.

But Jasmine said not to let themselves waste time being sad over what they can’t control.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he tells her. “I mean – you look beautiful every night. But especially tonight.”

Jasmine laughs, and he hopes it’s only half at his bumbling and the other half is a giggle at his charm.

“And you’re the handsomest man who’s scaled my balcony lately,” Jasmine replies.

“You get a lot of those?” he asks.

“Twelve a night,” she replies. “I have a stick to keep away the ones I don’t like.”

“I’m flattered, then,” Aladdin says. “Most of the girls whose balconies I climb use the stick on me. You’re one of the few who actually let me up.”

Jasmine laughs, and she smiles down into her tea. Her laugh quickly fades into a thought, as she runs a finger around the rim of her cup.

“Have you ever been in love before?” she asks softly.

She asks it with a little hesitation in her voice, as though afraid the answer will be yes. As if she isn’t wholly unlike anyone he’s ever met, as if the whole world doesn’t wilt away beside her.

“Not before this, no,” he says.

Jasmine looks up. He sees her mouth moving just slightly, and he thinks he can make out the shape of the words “before this” in her lips. He thinks he sees some softness in her eyes, some surprise.

“What about you?” he asks, just as afraid of the answer. If she loved a prince now, she wouldn’t be in the mess she is. But surely, when she was younger, the son of some advisor or general…

Jasmine actually laughs, but it has a bitter edge to it. “No, I haven’t been allowed out of the palace since my mother died. And that happened before I was old enough to even know what love is. I don’t know the last time I spoke to a man my own age before you and all these princes.”

“Not a lot of young nobility here in the palace?” Aladdin asks.

Jasmine shakes her head. “I’m more sheltered than the livestock.”

“Not always a bad thing. You were always safe, at least. Always had food, someplace to sleep, people watching out for you.”

“If only it were that simple,” Jasmine says. She sets her tea aside, undrunk. “If only food and a bed were all a person needed.”

Aladdin looks away, and his eyes scan the opulent room around him with a bitter pang. He understands, truly, but it’s hard not to feel that twinge of anger at someone so able to dismiss a life he couldn’t even think to dream of.

“I’m sorry,” Jasmine says, as though she can read his mind. “I know I must sound so self-pitying to you. But you get it, don’t you? It’s not just bodies that starve.”

Aladdin looks back at her, and her eyes are searching him. She’s waiting with bated breath for him not to judge her. She should already know he never could.

He reaches over and pulls up her hand to kiss it once more.

(He’ll do it as many times as she’ll let him. He’ll do it until he gets as close as he can to making up for the lifetime they could have had together.)

“I get it,” he says. “I really do. Not having my parents, there’s too much I had to figure out on my own. Too many nights I felt like I was all alone. I mean, you have your father, but…”

Jasmine nods. “My mother was supposed to be here. She was supposed to be there for me when I was upset, when I was confused, for all of it. And everything she meant to pass on to me…I’ll never know it. And there are some things only a mother can teach her daughter. I mean, I’m supposed to get married soon, and I don’t even –”

Jasmine abruptly cuts herself off. She looks at Aladdin with wide eyes; the faintest brush of red colors her cheeks. Aladdin’s thoughts suddenly storm like an army in the direction Jasmine’s words were headed.

Don’t look away from her face, he tells himself.

Don’t look away from her face.

Don’t look away from –

His eyes trace down her body. Her chest is frozen still, as she holds her breath. Her legs are crossed at the ankles, her knees pointed toward him. She’s wearing pants beneath her tunic, and he can see the outline of her thighs in them.

He’s still holding her hand. He traces his fingers over her palm, the inside of her wrist, her forearm. He shifts just that little bit closer, with no idea what he’s doing. For God’s sake, they haven’t even kissed.

His hand lands on her waist. Jasmine sits up straighter, leans in closer.

Not close enough.

Their faces are still a foot apart, and Aladdin has to make a decision.

God, he wants to. This close, he can smell the flowers she must bathe with. He can feel the heat of her body through her dress, where his hand meets her waist. She’s holding his gaze, her lips slightly parted.

He wants to.

But Jasmine said she doesn’t want to waste time being upset tonight. He knows if he kissed her, he would have to tell her he loves her. If he told her he loved her, he would have to tell her the thousand reasons why. He would have to tell her that the past week has been the best he can remember, that he’ll savor these memories for the rest of his life, and that he would marry her if she were anybody else but a princess.

He can’t kiss her, not tonight.

So he leans in, his free hand coming up to cup her cheek. He hears Jasmine’s tiny intake of breath, and then her sigh as his lips press to her cheek.

He shifts so that his lips are beside her ear, and he whispers, “You don’t need to know anything, Princess. If your husband isn’t happy just sharing your bed, you picked a stupid husband.”

He starts to pull away, but Jasmine’s hands come to rest on his arms, holding him in place with his face inches from hers. Her eyes bore into his. Heat washes over him.

“You say that like you know,” Jasmine whispers.

Aladdin chuckles. “I don’t know anything, trust me. Just that you’re the most gorgeous woman in the world, and if I…” He swallows. He can’t let himself hope or imagine like that. “Like I said, your husband would be an idiot not to just appreciate you.”

Jasmine smiles, and her eyelids lower as she traces her eyes over Aladdin’s mouth and chest. Her hands tighten on his arms. When her eyes come back up to meet his, his mouth goes dry at the look she gives him.

It’s solely by the fact that he already chose not to kiss her tonight that he’s not kissing her now. That inertia is the only thin barrier between him and utterly ravishing her. Based on the look in Jasmine’s eyes, it’s the only thing stopping her, too.

Slowly, agonizingly, Aladdin pulls himself away. He draws the conversation to safer topics, but the heat between him and Jasmine doesn’t go away. For the rest of the night, they sit closer, find excuses to touch each other: he brushes the hair from her face, she puts a hand on his arm as she laughs, he keeps kissing the back of her hand. When they finally have to admit that the sky is beginning to get lighter, Aladdin is almost grateful for the brush of cool breeze when he steps back out onto the balcony.

He swings himself over the balcony railing, and Jasmine leans over as he starts to descend. At the last second, a wild urge grabs him. Aladdin climbs two steps back up, and he lifts Jasmine’s braid to let it course over his hand, kissing it halfway down. Jasmine blushes, and she brushes a few stray hairs behind her ear.

When Aladdin reaches the ground, he pulls her ring from his pocket. Holding Jasmine’s gaze, he lifts the ring and presses his lips to it.

One more night.

One more kiss.


	5. Fifth Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He’s not going to let his emotions get the better of him. He’s not going to beg for more time or let himself break down over the fact that he won’t see her again. He’s here for three things:
> 
> Return the ring.
> 
> Kiss her.
> 
> Tell her he loves her."

Aladdin turns Jasmine’s ring over in his hand. He brushes his thumb over the surface, feeling its braided exterior. He’s almost tempted to say he lost it, just so he can have something to remember her by. A ring seems a fitting thing to keep.

Deep breath.

He can do this.

He’s not going to let his emotions get the better of him. He’s not going to beg for more time or let himself break down over the fact that he won’t see her again. He’s here for three things:

Return the ring.

Kiss her.

Tell her he loves her.

An easy enough list. Aladdin slides the ring back into his pocket and steps out into the garden. Jasmine is up on the balcony, sitting on the bench with her back to him. Her head is bent down; Aladdin wonders if she’s reading something.

He scales the balcony, his heart like thunder in his chest. Is it healthy for his heart to be beating this hard? Is he about to die before he can even reach Jasmine? He definitely feels like he’s having trouble breathing. Oh God, he’s definitely dying.

But without dying on the way – and it feels as though each moment in between stretches to ten times its length – he climbs over the railing and onto the balcony.

The moment he sees Jasmine, his heart stops entirely.

She looks up at him, and her mouth opens like she’s going to say something. But no words come out. She just stares at him.

He stares back.

The air between them is thick with things unsaid, promises unspoken, time they won’t get to have.

Aladdin’s hand slips into his pocket. He turns the ring over in his fingers, again and again.

Jasmine stands. Slowly, she walks over to him. She still isn’t smiling. In fact, Aladdin can see her lower lip tremble when she looks at him.

Oh God, if she starts crying…

He pulls the ring out of his pocket and holds it up. Lamely, he says, “I figured I should, you know, return this.”

Jasmine still doesn’t speak.

Aladdin doesn’t either, for a minute. He knows what he wants to say, but his voice has vanished. It occurs to him all the nights she could have kissed him but hasn’t, all the ways he’s half-told her he loves her but she hasn’t said the same, all the excuses he’s found to kiss her and she hasn’t done the same.

She gave him the ring last night, though. She told him to come back. She wanted him to come back one last night.

Aladdin swallows. He says, “Um, a – a kiss. You know, for your…ring back.”

At last, Jasmine smiles. It’s a small smile, and a little sad, too. But to Aladdin, it’s bright as sunshine, and it makes him hope.

Jasmine steps in closer, her smile growing by the second. She comes in closer and closer, until her face is inches from Aladdin’s. Her hands come up to rest on his chest. This close, he can see every detail in her eyes, every perfect eyelash.

He doesn’t so much as breathe, from the moment she touches him.

“Then kiss me,” she whispers.

His right hand is still holding the ring, so his left comes forward to gently hold her waist. He takes a deep breath, and he leans in.

Jasmine shuts her eyes first. Her lashes flutter as she does, and she smiles in anticipation.

God, that smile. He feels like a man who’s never seen daylight, getting his first glimpse of sunset. There for just a second, and it’s going to be snatched away from him all too soon.

He pauses one last moment, when his lips are a breath away from hers. He savors this feeling, the fact of her wanting him. The feeling like for a moment, everything is absolutely perfect.

Then he kisses her, and he realizes he had no idea what perfect even was until now.

Her lips are soft, and he brushes his own against them gently. It’s a soft kiss; he’s holding himself back, because what he really wants is to kiss her as passionately as she’ll let him. But he wants this moment to be perfect, and he wants her to remember him as someone who treated her like a precious thing.

He’d kiss her forever if he could, but he has to pull away eventually, and it feels like far too soon when he does. Jasmine’s eyes stay shut. She has a rapturous smile on her face, and Aladdin traces the curve of her lips with his eyes.

Jasmine’s eyes open. She looks at Aladdin like she’s maybe, just possibly in love with him.

Now or never, then. Aladdin holds up her ring. “I think this is yours.”

“Right,” Jasmine says. “Um…”

She starts to reach for it, but before she can, Aladdin grabs her hand. He holds it in place and slowly guides her ring onto her middle finger. For a moment, he lets himself imagine the two of them eloping, running away, seeing the world. He lets himself imagine he could actually have her.

But maybe, just for a moment, just for nine magnificent nights, he did have her.

When the ring is in place, he tells her, “I love you. I’m pretty sure I’ve loved you from the moment I met you. And even if I’ll never see you again, I think I’m going to be in love with you for the rest of my life. I’m never going to forget you, not ever. I’d marry you if I could, I really would. I just, I love you, and I…yeah. That’s pretty much it. I love you.”

Jasmine’s eyes shine with tears that haven’t yet fallen, but she still has that smile like she’s in love with him. He knows, a moment later, that yes, that is in fact what that smile means, because she responds, “I love you.”

She comes closer, and one of her hands reaches up to brush against his cheek. Her touch is so light, he barely even feels it, but goosebumps spring up all over his body from her touch.

She tells him, “I love you. If I could run away with you, I would. If I could marry you, I would. If I could somehow find a way for you to come to my balcony every night until the end of time, I would.

“But as it is…thank you.”

The thank you is whispered, and in it is contained the magnitude of what the past nine nights have meant to her, so disproportionate to how small a length of time it was.

How improbable a thing, to fall in love in just over a week. How impossible, to fall in love with a princess.

He’s got no idea how he’s going to make himself walk away from her tonight. But if it were between that and never having met her at all, it wouldn’t even be a question.

He feels as though he should say something more, but what is there to say that he hasn’t already? What is there beyond the simplicity and perfection of being in love with a woman who loves you back?

So he kisses her again, and this time, he doesn’t hold back. He wraps an arm around Jasmine’s waist and holds her head with the other, and he kisses her like he means it. Jasmine’s lips are pliant beneath his, and her body melts in his arms as he tips her ever so slightly backward.

When he stops, still with her in his arms, Jasmine is breathless. Her eyes are wide as they flick between Aladdin’s eyes and his lips. He holds Jasmine tighter, as if that can somehow keep the world from coming between them. As if, maybe if he holds her close enough and kisses her long enough, princes and laws and kingdoms will cease to exist.

He licks his lips. “If I could be at that party with everyone else trying to marry you tomorrow…”

Jasmine smiles sadly. “If I could persuade my father to let me marry for love instead of power, I would have done it days ago. Or make everyone think Dalia is the princess and I’m the handmaiden, like when we first met. She could marry a prince, and…”

She doesn’t finish. They both know that would never work for her. She may love Aladdin, but she loves her people and Agrabah, too.

“You’re going to make a good ruler someday,” Aladdin tells her.

Her expression softens, and her eyes land on his lips again.

There’s not going to be a good moment to say goodbye, is there? If he lets himself, he’ll stay on this balcony until the world ends around them, so long as he gets to keep kissing the woman he loves.

The woman he has to lose forever.

He pulls his arms away from her waist and takes a step back. For the last time, he lifts Jasmine’s hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. “I love you. I’ll never forget you.”

The tears in her eyes finally fall. She rushes forward and holds Aladdin’s face between her hands for one last kiss, and she looks up at him with tears flowing freely and tells him, “I’ll find a way, someday. Even if it takes until we’re both ancient. I’ll find you again, I promise. I love you.”

Aladdin smiles sadly at her. “Remember me, Princess.”

His own vision blurs with tears, and he turns away before Jasmine can see. He realizes, though, as he’s walking back to the railing, that he needs one last sight of her. One last vision that he’ll play in his head every night before he falls asleep.

He turns, and Jasmine is still standing there, beautiful and shining in the moonlight and smiling through her tears. She raises a hand in goodbye.

Aladdin knows the feel of that hand on his skin. He knows the feel of her lips. He knows what it sounds like to hear the Princess of Agrabah say the words “I love you” and mean it. All of that has to be enough.

He lets his eyes roam over her one last time, and then he looks away and descends to the garden below.

At the bottom, he looks up for one last glimpse of Jasmine, but she isn’t there. His heart clenches, and he realizes he’s going to have to get used to that: looking forward to seeing her but remembering he won’t. Not ever again.

He doesn’t even have something to remember her by. He should have asked. He should have done a thousand things differently. Hell, right now, he should scale that balcony once more and beg her to run away with him.

He forces himself to start walking across the gardens, though. He can’t linger. It’d be ironic if tonight were the night he finally got caught by the guards.

Just as he’s stepping into the shelter of the tall hedges, a hand grabs his arm and pulls him to the side. Aladdin yelps, and he tries to shake the person off, but their grip is tight. Next thing he knows, his back is to a wall and someone’s hand is over his mouth.

“Don’t scream,” Dalia tells him.

Aladdin looks down at Jasmine’s handmaiden in confusion. She’s a tiny thing. How is she so strong?

When it’s clear he won’t scream, Dalia removes her hand. She doesn’t give Aladdin a chance to ask what’s going on.

She demands, “Do you love her?”

“I – what? Yes, I love her.”

“And you want to marry her?”

“Yes.”

“Then come with me. I’ve got a plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued...


End file.
